The art of dimensional travel. A simple but also difficult thing to master.
The Stage one begins to understand how space travel works, were for most, at the rank of middle to late stage Lord realm. As at those stages, one's body and Will becomes strong enough to handle the pressures of short distance localized space-time travel without immediately being torn to shreds.
If your body was fortified enough but your Will wasn't up to the task of holding open your own dimensional gate to complete a spatial transport, you could end up stranded in the space between worlds. And that was death on delivery.
In the later stages after the lord realm, one's Will and body then grow enough to handle the long-distance transport that could take you halfway across the world. Or take someone along with you for a short distance.
Anything more than what you can handle would be risking consequences as mild as hours of splitting headaches to hard ones like being stranded, or even the severe ones that could immediately lead straight to your death.
At the stages where one begins to leave behind their mortality behind grants you the capability to move yourself across the entire world, with some severe strain. You could even move armies halfway across, though hardly anyone ever does it, as there was always a high chance of things fucking up. Only spirit lords had those capabilities.
The process of moving across different worlds or dimensions was something only seen at the ranks of Spirit kings, as one would need to have a domain and a strong body with a powerful and stable Spirit form strong enough to prevent yourself from being immediately crushed by the world gate you're passing through, whether through orbit or moving directly into the world itself.
The passive energy protection of world spirits was something only peak spirit lord, at the least, could handle without being immediately crushed.
Not all peak spirit lords could do this, though, as not all were equal.
What Damien did was a movement between dimensions, the physical and the metaphysical. He didn't move the inn's room far; he just moved it into the metaphysical realm overlapping the inn's location.
A trivial thing for spirit kings but an enormous task for him. Other people who also knew much about the art of dimensional travel would find what Damien just did outstanding as he was still in the middle stages of the realm of Spirit lords.
The mental strength one would need to have to tear open space across dimensions, even one as close as overlapping one's immediate location was not something a middle-stage spirit lord should be capable of doing.
Since Damien couldn't yet form a domain, he settled for actively enforcing the room, soaking it with his energy, to the extent that it was even stronger than any fortress seen on the planet. This would make it strong enough to handle the energy coursing through the metaphysical dimension for a short while.
He knew how weakened he was going to be when he moved back into the physical dimension, not weakened enough to be defeated by any of the soldiers in the city, but if anyone stronger came, he'd be in big trouble.
He already knew that he was going to have visitors the moment he moved back, but that was a problem for later.
Looking at the spy sitting on the bed across from him, he asked the question that had been on his mind after the man had finished explaining himself.
"Do you know what form this calamity is going to take, or the whereabouts of the calamity stopper you speak of?"
The man shook his head, fear still in his eyes.
"I've searched the entire city and gone through the city records. There is no mention of anything that I would point out as relating to the calamity or the thing that could stop it," The man answered.
Damien sighed. He had been hoping to learn of something strong enough to stop a calamity, whatever the so-called calamity was.
He didn't hold any love for the empire – too much bad blood between them – so anything calamitous that was heading towards them could head there with his full blessings. But what truly interested him was this calamity stopper.
To be able to stop a calamity, you would need something far stronger than that calamity, as anything lower would just be calling for death. You might not die quickly but you would still die eventually.
Calamities came in different forms, from empowered natural disasters to entities so strong that their simple passing could be foretold as a coming calamity. Even a brawl between extremely powerful Essence wielders could be considered a calamity for the lower-level people living in the affected areas.
Why Damien didn't see any of that as this co-called calamity was that the empire was among the pinnacle forces residing on the planet.
No single force could defeat them alone, only the coalition of multiple forces could hope to bring them down, and even that would be extremely costly.
Damien discounted that too, as he would have known of any coalition strong enough to completely defeat the empire as to be called a calamitous event. The only beings strong enough to completely annihilate the empire were the spirit kings, and those weren't allowed on the planet lest they anger the World spirit of this planet, and no sane Spirit king would do that.
World spirits were known for being overprotective of their respective bodies. When it came to their bodies, which were also their territories, they could be completely wrathful, and no one wants to anger an overprotective ascendant.
World spirits were known to protect their territories to the extent that anybody ascending into the rank of spirit kings on that territory was warned in no subtle way to leave the planet or swear a binding oath to never fight on that planet, even to save their own lives. And no Spirit king would swear to become a pacifist just to stay on a floating rock.
Mostly, they just lived in castles and fortresses floating in space.
Spirit kings could step onto a planet, but just not with their physical bodies. They could use an avatar, but that would be weakened to the level of a peak-stage spirit lord. And most Essence wielders in the higher realms hated being reduced back to their previous levels.
Deciding that he had no more reason to keep staying here, Damien decided to move them back.
"Since you have answered my questions well enough to my satisfaction and there's nothing more that I need to know from you presently. And from your explanation, I already suspect you're behind the timely arrival and strange bravado from this warlord who suddenly had the stupid idea to attack a magical territory. It's time to go back," Damien said.
The man's expression turned pale.
"Please don't kill me. I swear I won't say a word about you," The man crawled on the ground.
Damien barked a laugh.
"Why would I do that? You already answered my questions truthfully. And I do not kill needlessly. Besides, why would I be afraid of my name reaching the ears of your superiors? They can't do anything, after all."
His face immediately hardened and his eyes turned sharp.
"When next you report back, tell them to stay out of my business and I would stay out of theirs. They wouldn't want me to start taking aggressive interest in their activities, now would they?" His voice came out in a whisper.
With that, Damien firmed his mind, opened a dimensional tear, and pushed them through.